#COMMUNISM THREAD

As I have noticed more and more people advocating for communism and its ‘wonders’, I’ve decided to make a thread on communism in Poland (PRL or eng. PPL - Polish People’s Republic).

It lasted for nearly 50 years and it WAS NOT heaven on Earth.

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Plans to turn Poland into a communist country appeared around 1918, and they were fuelled by the USSR. The main reason they’ve managed to take over Poland was the German occupation during WWII, their catchy slogans (The Worker’s Party) and electoral fraud.

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The first, and for some, best thing about PPR was lack of unemployment. That’s right, the unemployment was 0%. EVERYBODY had a job, and everybody was getting paid. Sounds amazing? It wasn’t.

Jobs were made for people, some of them were absolutely useless and pointless.

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We used to have a famous saying, roughly translated into ‘whether you’re lying, whether you’re sitting, grand or two you will be getting’.

No wonder then that after ‘89 when communism was abolished, in the first year alone, there was 1 million unemployed (6.5%)

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So with all that money people were buying lots of produce. Shops were not restocked daily, sometimes you had to queue up for a whole day just to get a piece of meat - but usually by the time you got to the till it was all gone.

So they’ve introduced ‘produce tickets’

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Here’s a sample ‘produce ticket’ for meat for the whole month. In the centre they wrote down your name and home address.
Besides meat you also had these ‘tickets’ for sugar, laundry detergent, petrol or even shoes.

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Empty shelves - but at least they always had vinegar, right?

PASSPORTS

Because the gov was scared people would get a one way ticket to a different country it was almost impossible to get your passport, and when you did you had to return it as soon as you returned to the country.

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If you wanted to go on Holiday to Italy, you had to tell them exactly which countries you’d be driving through - they verified it after your return by checking the stamps you got on the borders. It could cause you some serious trouble if you took a different route.

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But the biggest problem was getting USD. An exchange limit was between 15-100 USD a month - so if you needed 800 USD you had better started saving months in advance.

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National Censorship was a common practice with many many book and films being banned. Everything was double checked before being printed or aired. Anything that was in any way against the gov was censored.

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One of the films was changed so that the Red Army’s ‘help’ during the Uprising was more noticeable.

There was essentially NO freedom of speech.

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Corruption and bribing were not only popular - they became such a normal part of living in PPR that nobody cared.

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Finally we get to the introduction of Martial Law on the 13th of December 1981. Instead of watching the regular Teleranek (children’s morning show), people heard of the Martial Law and saw tanks on their streets.

Why did that happen?
The opposition - Solidarnosc, was growing

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For nearly 2 years an unlawful Martial Law was an everyday thing for Poles.

As you all probably know in 1990 Solidarnosc and Lech Wałęsa won the first fully democratic elections. Although communism ended in 1989, Poland still suffered its effects for years.

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There is NO such thing as good communism. It kills, it makes your life miserable, and when it’s over it takes the country YEARS to get back on its feet.

And if you advocate for it - go to countries where communism is still a thing today and get a reality check.

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